Whiterabbit-uk,

That sucks about the computer, Stephen. As I recall, it's a new one too which makes it even worse. A good thing about Win10, if that is what you had, is the option to reinstall while keeping your personal files. I saw ASCpro 14 being offered on SOS and toyed with giving it a try. Years ago I had regularly used Iolo System Mechanic until one day when it completely crippled my PC and I had to do a complete reinstall! I forget the specifics as it was some times ago. It was pre Win10 so I lost a lot of stuff but it did make me learn about partitioning my hard drive, keeping the OS on it's own, which I do to this day. I have been very careful using such types of programs since. The one I do use is Glary Utilities. I find it to be the least invasive with clear results that the user can choose what to do with. I mostly stay away from the registry cleaner but for cleaning/fixing/analyzing other things it is good.

The password thing, that's a whole other animal. How the heck could anyone crack a 25 character password!!! Or perhaps they hacked into Steam's system which sounds more likely. We so often hear about another corporate system being breached as it seems to get more frequent. Hackers get more and more sophisticated and we are really at the mercy of the places we sign-up and any site containing our personal info.

Good luck! I hope both issues get cleared up ASAP.

Whiterabbit-uk,
OMG!! That's terrible! What a massive pain in the ass you must be experiencing! Who would have ever thought that anyone could crack a 25 character alphanumeric password!
This makes me rethink my passwords now.

Whiterabbit-uk,

FWIW in case it helps & all that... It's possible that your PC was breached, & that's how they got your Steam password. *If* that was the case, ASCPro *may* have done it's job properly, and gotten rid of some but not all malware -- what's left of the malware, or its effects on Windows could be causing the problems. Alternatively when ASCPro accessed files that would have prompted your AV software to scan them, &/or malware might have been detected attempting self defense, and files were quarantined or removed. **If** something like that happened then it would be best to restore a backup if one's available, or go the fresh Windows install route. In the latter case, if it interests you, Microsoft has released an ISO to Insiders [just enter your Microsoft acct. email to sign up] for the upcoming 21H1 release -- the update is so minor there should be almost zero risk, and it would contain the latest updates. If OTOH you opt to go the repair route, this might help: windowscentral[.]com/how-use-dism-command-line-utility-repair-windows-10-image . I've read where Microsoft recommends trying that before trying to restore Windows from the boot menu, which may or may not work.

Good Luck.

Whiterabbit-uk, Dang. Gives me CCleaner flashbacks. Decided not to mess with those things anymore unless I'm babysitting them and know more about how they tickle the Registry. >.< Hope your expertise is enough to right what your software borked.

mike,

Hi Mike,
I was going to just flash the drive and start again, but when I turned my computer on earlier today it opened with the blue screens saying Windows wasn't able to tart due to a problem (or words to that effect. I was given a few options and chose to reset saving my documents etc and that did the trick. Thanks as always for your helpful advice.

I think you may have been right about the breach as it was a hard password to crack and wasn't using any personal details such as birthdays, names etc. I changed the password when my back up Steam account was hacked some years ago before Valve added more security; which prompted me to create much harder passwords. I never use short passwords now.

I had created a backup of the operating system shortly after I'd finished installing all of the essential drivers and other programs I regularly use, but the external drive I use seems to be broken. I'd bought it specifically for backing up the new build back in December a 2TB WD MyPassport Ultra drive, so am unable to access the backup. I'm going to back the reset onto a spare SSD I have.

Joe,

Hi Joe,
I don't think they cracked it; it's more likely that they lifted it from my computer. I've got into the habit of changing my passwords fairly regularly these days after a few scares.

jboy, I doubt they cracked the password as I've made it pretty complex with various characters from the usual alphanumeric to other special characters.

I got ASCPro from SoS last week. As I've used it previously several times and have neve rhad this problem, I was happy to install it; I was just a little too tired and impatient so instead of checking through all the recommended deletions I just allowed them all to be deleted wothout checking. I've never done that before.

In the end all's well as I just reset when windows gave me the option. It works fine now and is actually booting up and closing down much faster now that all of the programs I'd installed previously have been disabled. I regularly check my registry and create executables of any programs activation codes, so most of the applications are easy enough to re register, but I won't until they are required so as to keep the computer running faster. :)

"the external drive I use seems to be broken"

The WD MyPassport Ultra drives have a 3 year warranty, but 1st you *might* want to try it using different USB ports, &/or try it just after (re)starting Windows. AMD motherboards are somewhat known for flaky USB -- the X570 boards are supposed to have a BIOS update soon to hopefully help with that. I've got an X470 board, and when I want to connect a similar external drive I sometimes have to try 2 or 3 USB ports before it works.

I second what Mike states about the WD drive, although my motherboard is not AMD. It the passport is plugged in when I boot-up, it is connected without issue. However, if the laptop is already running and I plug the drive in, I often have to unplug and plug it in numerous times before it is seen. Sometimes signing out and signing back in will work, sometimes not. There have even been times when I needed immediate access to the drive that I have been forced to reboot as I couldn't get it to be seen any other way. For the record, I also have a portable Seagate drive that has none of the same issues.

mike,

Thanks Mike, I will try that. I have three WD external drives 1 x 4TB, 1 x 2TB and a 500GB, both the 500GB and 2TB have ceased to work despite only having used both a couple of times. My MoBo is an X570. I'll try your suggestion. The 4TB drive has been okay. I've been adding music to it for about a month virtually every day; downloading albums I've either got on vinyl or ones I've had stolen over the last 40 years (I lost a lot when I was in the army, some when I was in student accommodation and when our student home was robbed while we were visiting family half of my collection was taken amounting to over 300 albums, including some prized possessions such as Aphrodite's Child's 666 album, some early Genesis, Rush and The Scorpions. Not forgetting half of my original collection was left with my first partner plus my brother stole about 50 albums, mainly 70's stuff such as T.Rex and Tyrannosaurus Rex (including some rare early recordings of his), Slade, Black Sabbath, A white label version of Diamond heads first album, Cheap Trick etc, none of which I've ever recovered; so I'm downloading all of those I can remember at the moment via Spotify.

It's not the same, but too be honest, my hearing was ruined back in the 70's and 80, attending too many live concerts, mainly rock and blues, plus some jazz.

jboy,

Thanks JBoy, I'll try that as well. :)